“How Do You Feel About Mormons?: A Questionnaire,” by Ryan Shoemaker

(a) I tell them Mormons are the just the nicest people, then ask them to watch my dogs while I’m in Maui for a month.
(b) I formulate a rescue plan that includes college football and a seven-layer bean dip when the husband slips me a note that says, “Help me! I’m drowning in kids!”
(c) I present them with a bottle of $300.00 Bordeaux but violently snatch it from the wife when she mentions that wine is excellent for removing countertop stains.
(d) I convey my complete lack of interest in religion by welcoming them in a chain harness, metal-studded leather vest, and a pair of bottomless chaps.

2. What is your immediate reaction as you watch your Mormon neighbor’s fifteen kids pile into a van the size of a small school bus?

(a) In a panic, I call my doctor to schedule a vasectomy for the next day.
(b) I change my WIFI network name to “Save the planet. Stop having kids!”
(c) I wonder if they’d even notice if I dumped my bitchy ten-year-old stepdaughter, Paisley, into the van.
(d) I try to figure out a way to get all those kids to make knockoff Gucci wallets, which I’ll distribute through a guy I know in Chinatown.

3. How do you treat your new Mormon coworker?

(a) I take him to Outback Steakhouse for lunch, order rounds of Jack Daniel’s, and every time one comes, I grab his glass and say, “Oops, I forgot you don’t drink. Oops, I forgot you don’t drink. Oops, I forgot you don’t drink,” until I pass out in my Aussie Cheese Fries.
(b) I immediately forget his name and just call him Designated Driver.
(c) Whenever I see him drinking a Diet Coke, I slap the can from his lips and scream, while shaking him, “Think of your wife and kids! How can you abandon your faith? How?!”

4. What do you do when you read that Mormons revere the president of their church as a “prophet, seer, and revelator”?

(a) I dash off a quick letter offering to split the Mega Millions Jackpot if he’ll ask God to give me the winning numbers.
(b) I scream at my wife: “Hey, Francine, lookie here, another know-it-all who thinks they’re God’s gift to humanity!”
(c) Though it would look awesome on Tinder, I imagine that dating must be difficult for a prophet, seer, and revelator.

5. How do you respond when two Mormon missionaries knock at your door?

(a) I pinch their cheeks and say, “So cute! Are you on a lunch break from your Broadway musical?”
(b) I ask, “No cookies?”
(c) I feign enough interest so they can’t say no when I ask them to paint the kitchen and hallway, while I binge watch The Walking Dead in my bedroom.

6. How do you react after learning that Brigham Young, the second president of the Mormon Church, had fifty-five wives?

(a) I instinctively grab my wallet.
(b) I build a time machine and travel back 140 years to give him a fist bump.
(c) I decide that reinventing myself as a bearded, well-fed frontier visionary might greatly improve my dating life.

7. How do you personally feel about the Mormon belief that all humans have the divine potential to become gods of their own worlds and create billions of spirit offspring?

(a) No thanks. I can’t even hang an IKEA bookshelf; I’d screw everything up.
(b) Honestly, I’ve kind of always felt that I am a god.
(c) Bad idea. I never finish a project.
(d) Cool! I’d immediately create a TV the size of the moon and a never-ending beer keg.

(a) I didn’t see Mitt at all; I couldn’t keep my eyes off his smoking-hot wife.
(b) That hair. That smile. The cut of his Men’s Warehouse suit. I felt a deep stirring in my groin and suddenly, after fifty years as a staunch heterosexual, could no longer deny my latent homosexual desires.
(c) I thought, “Hey, that’s the jerk from Cranbrook Prep who sucker punched me, cut my hair, and then said, ‘Don’t forget to vote Mitt for senior class president.’”

(a) “Hey, I’m just getting used to a black president.”
(b) “Anyone but Donald Trump.”
(c) “Would that mean I get Sundays off?”

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Ryan Shoemaker’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Gulfstream, Booth, Word Riot, and The Fiction Desk, among others. Recently, his collection of short stories, Beyond the Lights, was a semifinalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award. The collection is forthcoming from No Record Press. Find him at RyanShoemaker.net.